Former President Trump immediately responded to a massive downward revision by the Labor Department to job growth, accusing the Biden-Harris administration of “inflating” the numbers in a social media post.
The Labor Department announced on Wednesday that far fewer new jobs were created in the economy last year and at the beginning of this year than previously reported.
According to the US Department of Labor, the monthly wage and salary statistics overstated the number of new jobs created in the 12-month period ending in March of this year by around 818,000. This corresponds to a downward revision of almost 30 percent.
Economists see the updated figures as another sign of a weakening labor market that had remained strong in recent years as the country’s economy rebounded from a massive recession during the coronavirus pandemic. The jobs boom continued despite high interest rates and growing concerns about an impending recession.
Biden’s administration retracts rosy job figures
Former President Trump answers a reporter’s question following his remarks at the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office in Howell, Michigan, on August 20, 2024. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, has long criticized both President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris – who replaced her boss last month at the top of the 2024 Democratic ticket – for the high inflation that Americans have struggled with during the three-year economic recovery.
Now he claims, without providing any evidence, that the Biden administration deliberately inflated the employment numbers.
Harris fills the arena where the Republicans held their convention a month ago
“HUGE SCANDAL! The Harris-Biden administration was caught fraudulently manipulating labor statistics to hide the true extent of the economic ruin it has inflicted on America,” Trump accused in a statement on his Truth Social platform.
And he argued: “New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the government inflated the numbers by 818,000 additional jobs that DO NOT AND NEVER EXIST.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, attend a campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 20, 2024. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
But economists say the preliminary revisions are part of an annual process of comparing initial monthly estimates with more accurate data that takes longer to collect.
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Jared Bernstein, chairman of the White House Council on Economic Advisory, stressed in a statement that “neither the preliminary nor the final revisions have a direct impact on estimates of job growth over the past few months – which is important to consider when assessing today’s labor market.”
The Harris campaign stressed that “statistical revisions are normal and subject to fluctuations, and that there was a 500,000 revision during the Trump administration in 2019.”
They also pointed out that the revision “does not change the fact” that 15 million jobs have been created since Biden and Harris took office in January 2021.
All opinion polls indicate that the economy remains the most important issue for American voters.
According to Fox News’ latest national poll, 38 percent of respondents said the economy was their most important issue in the presidential election, far ahead of all other issues surveyed.
And according to the poll, conducted August 9-12, Trump was six percentage points ahead of Harris on how to better manage the economy.
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